


A Picture's Worth

by jacksonwng



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Derek has a lot of tattoos, Family, Fluff, M/M, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 05:04:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacksonwng/pseuds/jacksonwng
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each tattoo tells a story, at the very least they do in Derek's case, and his son wants to hear every one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Picture's Worth

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Alex](http://hoechlinsthighs.tumblr.com) :P
> 
> Unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own

 

“This one,” Tyler grinned toothily at his father and pressed one of his little fingers to one of the inked images on his forearm. Derek couldn’t stop himself from smiling down at his son before he followed the limb to find what story he was going to tell next.

It was a wolf’s head, shadowed in darkness, with narrowed eyes, glowing blue, and sharp teeth that were bared when the beast snarled. Derek traced a finger over the image fondly and thought back.

“This one...I got this after I stopped being the Alpha,” he explained softly.

“Alpha? Like Unca Scott?” Tyler tilted his head curiously, eyebrows furrowed.

Derek hummed. “For a short time, yes I was.” he took in a breath, “We’d been having some trouble in town, another pack in our territory and some other horrible things, and your Aunt Cora, she got sick.”

“But Papa said that werewolves don’t get sick,” he told his father, frowning disgruntledly at the memory of the time he had pretended to be sick so he didn’t have to go to school and it had been foiled in the first few minutes.

Derek’s lips quirked at the memory. “This was a different kind of sick,” he stated, “The kind of sick that no werewolf could heal from. She’d been with the doctor’s and then, when all the trouble started to happen, I had to get her out of there. An old friend...”

Derek paused at the words. It still felt wrong to say them whenever he was talking about Peter. The man was his uncle, his family, but there was too much darkness there, too much history and betrayal and while Derek was thankful to the man had technically helped him to the place he was at now, it had been decided when Tyler was born that neither he nor Stiles would talk about Peter. They didn’t want Tyler to know what his great uncle had done, to be tainted by it and unfortunately, at that time, there was nothing but.

He continued, “...he told me that there was a way to save her and that would involve giving up my place as alpha. I didn’t mind too much. Things...weren’t great and aunt Cora was more important to me than any power I could possess. We left Beacon Hills not long after that, when everything had been sorted, and I went and I got this, to remind me of who I really am and who I was supposed to be.”

Tyler’s mouth formed an ‘o’ and he nodded understandingly, his eyes trained on the image that he traced carefully with his fingertips, as if the image were a real thing and had to be treated with care.  He looked like Stiles when he did that, Derek mused.

It was strange how much this child was like Stiles, and yet like Derek at the same time. They’d used both Stilinski and Hale genes to make him so Derek guessed it only made sense. When it had first been suggests, Cora having a baby for them, Derek hadn’t been entirely on board with the idea, but Stiles had been so happy at the idea of having a child that was from both halves of them that Derek didn’t have the heart to tell him that, technically, Tyler wasn’t part him. In the end though, it hadn’t mattered because as soon as the nurse had laid that little boy in his arms, pink and squirming and wrapped up in the blanket that had been wrapped around Stiles when he was the same age, Derek couldn’t have been more in love.

Tyler had inherited the eyebrows, Derek’s dads, Tyler’s grandfathers, that were far too expressive on a four year old, and he’d gotten the werewolf gene, which they had found out when he was four months old with his first cold (as baby werewolves immune system aren’t as well developed as the adults) and he’d sneezed and accidentally turned. Stiles had taken so many photographs of the pointy-eared, hairy baby that Derek had wondered whether there would be any baby pictures that they could mount and put on the wall. He’d gotten Derek’s eyes as well, brown and gold and green, wide and framed with long dark eyelashes. Everything else though, that was all Stiles. The hair, the facial expressions, the words, everything. And Derek loved it. God, he loved it.

Maybe that was one of the reasons why he took on as much responsibility as he could. That wasn’t to say that Stiles didn’t take any time with their son, but during the day, the man taught european history at the high school and his schedule wasn’t as flexible as Derek’s was, being the proof reader for the Beacon Hills Gazette, which meant that Derek was the one who dropped their son off at elementary school and picked him up again. He liked that hour and a half window between getting home and Stiles coming through the door because daddy-Tyler time was the one of the best parts of his day.

Derek loved to tell stories and Tyler loved to hear them, especially, for a reason that Derek had yet to understand, when it had something to do with his tattoos. He’d gotten a lot more since the original, the triskelion on the center of his back; each of them to remind him of different parts of his life, the important moments that he never wanted to let go of.

“What about this one?” Tyler questioned, and Derek glanced down to see he had turned his attention to another image. It was an abstract swirl of colours - red, yellow and orange - and within, there were two rings.

“Now this I had done after your papa and I got married,” Derek told him fondly, “Second best day of my life.”

“That better be only to the birth of our son,” Stiles’ voice drifted from the doorway and Derek looked up, surprised and then smiled.

“Stiles, I didn’t hear you come in.”

Stiles grinned triumphantly. “Good. It means that I’m getting better at this whole sneaking up on werewolves thing. I refuse to be outwitted in my own home.”

Derek shared an amused look with Tyler, who giggled behind his hand.

“Hey now, don’t I get a hug giggle-pants?” Stiles mock-demanded, an over exaggerated frown in place that dropped the moment that Tyler scrambled to his feet to throw his arms around his father. Tyler nuzzled his neck, scenting him happily and Stiles beamed, pressing his face into the boy’s light brown hair.

“Now that’s better,” Stiles grinned, “So how are my two favourite boys?”

“Daddy was telling me about the tat-oos and what they mean,” Tyler told his papa dutifully, “Like this one, that’s about turning Unca Isaack and Aunt Ewrica and Unca Ven. A-and that one is about daddy meeting you, papa, and this one-”

“Is about you being born,” Stiles finished for him, his fingers coming out to brush across the image of the oak tree, created out of brown lines, scribbled and swirled together. “Do you know why it’s a tree?”

“Because the nema...nem-an-ton is powerful and that’s where all Hale babies have been born,” Tyler recited from memory, stumbling over a few words, and both parents beamed proudly.

“That’s it baby boy,” Stiles muttered, “And can you see your name, on the first branch, just here?” Stiles used their son’s hand and gently directed it to the words just beneath.

“And then there’s four other spaces, for your future brothers and sisters,” Derek told him.

“I think your daddy’s getting confused on how many children my hips can handle,” Stiles stated dryly and Derek quirked an eyebrow, almost challenging.

“I want four brothers and sisters,” Tyler announced.

Stiles shot Derek a mock accusing glare. “You’re turning him against me.”

“Now would I do something like that?” Derek feigned innocence.

Stiles looked unconvinced and Derek smiled charmingly, turning triumphantly when Stiles’ lips twitched upward at the corners. Stiles shook his head, “Alright, let me get changed and then you and I baby boy have some games to play.”

“I want to play Jenga,” Tyler piped up.

Stiles ran a hand through his hair. “Anything you want.” He dropped a kiss on his forehead, and then straightened up.

“What about my kiss?” Derek pouted and Stiles smiled fondly before dropping a chaste kiss on the man’s lips, lingering with a silent promise of more later, when little eyes weren’t around to see.

“I suppose I should start making dinner then,” Derek sighed and made to stand up, stopped by the little hands on his knees. Tyler leant on them, pushing weight down to stop his daddy from leaving and shot the man a pleading look, his eyes wide and bottom lip pushed out.

“Just one more story? Until papa comes down?”

Derek lowered back into position. “Okay, what story do you want?”

“The one about the full moon with grandmama and grandpapa,” Tyler answered automatically.

“Again?” Derek laughed and Tyler nodded eagerly.

Derek didn’t fully understand why the boy liked the story of his first full moon as a child with his parents. It was one of his earliest memories. Maybe it was about the anticipation for the full moon run, since Tyler was still too young to participate, or maybe it was because of the connection to one part of his family that he will never know. By now, Derek could recite the tale by heart and he did so, his fingers joining Tyler’s to brush against the full moon that peeked out from behind a blanket of clouds, drawn ever so carefully on his bicep.

And Derek, he closed his eyes and once again, remembered.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are gold :P
> 
> I have [tumblr](http://imthekeptainnow.tumblr.com)


End file.
